Block unwanted traffic in Google Analytics

34
5.1K followers
Updated

Unwanted traffic

I'm always skeptical when I get traffic from strange looking sites. Russian scam site for instance. Most of the time the traffic come from unreliable sources and scam pages that send unwanted traffic to your site. Luckily it's possible to filter out this traffic in Google Analytics.

Today I filtered out a page called o-o-6-o-o. com. Here's the list over other pages I have blocked:

NOTE: I had to add a space before the .com here on the blog site to make sure the links can't be clicked on...

- The IP to blackhatwoth. com which are 78.110.60. 230
- BlackHatWorth. com
- Iskalko. ru
- darodar. com
- ILoveVitaly. com
- Lombia. co
- Econom. co
- Pricereg. com
- semalt. com
- hulfingtonpost. com
- bestwebsideawards. com
- o-o-6-o-o. com
- humanorightswatch. org

If you see strange names like these in your traffic google it and try to find out if its scam. I usually enter "what is blackhatworth. com" for instance in google. Don't go into the site itself.

These sites are automated pages which give you fake traffic, give you the wrong impression on how many people are visiting your site and can also damage your relationship to dear old Google if they think you do this on purpose to get traffic.

How to block fake traffic:

It's a bit of a manual process but here's how I do it. Suggestions for other ways are welcome. I do this on all my sites.

1. Enter Google Analytics and log in.
2.Click Admin on the top right.
3. Be sure to select the correct account on the left side.
4. Click Filter on the right side somewhere.
5. Click New Filter
6. Create New Filter
7.
Filter Type -> Custom
8. Be sure that Exclude is selected and choose Referral under Filter Field
9. Enter the site you want to filter out, for instance 'o-o-6-o-o. com', under Filter Pattern

10. Click Save.


It may take some a few days, but eventually you will stop seeing traffic from the filtered out pages in Google Analytics and get a cleaner and more real feedback on who's visiting your page.

I'm not completely sure if this bad traffic actually is blocked, but at least it will be invisible and hidden and not an annoying problem anymore.

Hope that was helpful.

Andreas

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Recent Comments

30

Thanks for sharing as this has happened to me

Thanks for sharing this info. I will put it to use right away.

Thanks for the share. I too am receiving hits from Semalt and also some sort of forum topic thread. I doubt it would be from WA comment threads as it would display the WA domain name instead if it was. Neil

Thanks AndreasG

I have been hit with bogus traffic from almost every one of these that you mentioned and just today, also the one you mentioned. I was wondering what it may be. Pretty annoying. The ilovevitaly and doradar were hitting me forever. Good advice and instructions here. Thanks and all the best!

Thank you for the training here much appreciated as I don't really know what i am doing with GA
Ken

It works better if you go to the second column tracking info click go to referral and just add it there.It is called referral spam and they have a special area just for that.

Hi! How much time I need to wait until that referal traffic disappear from my GA. I included that solution yesterday and still today I receive traffic from oo6oo. Thanks in advance!

It usually takes 24 hours to see results

Thank you for sharing this important info!

thank you

Hi Andreas

I discovered this too recently. Wondered why my site was so popular in Russia!

I also blocked the IP addresses I access the site from too, so I can see a real view of traffic which isn't being distorted by my previewing of posts.

This should definitely be made part of the training for newbies.. :)

C

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